France investigates Asaad’s crimes against humanity

In this Thursday Dec. 9, 2010 file photo, Syria President Bashar al-Assad addresses reporters following his meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. Paris prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into French government accusations that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government has committed crimes against humanity. The prosecutor’s office said Wednesday the investigation is based on photos taken by a former Syrian officer who fled in 2013 and focuses on atrocities allegedly committed between 2011 and 2013. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere, File)

France has launched a probe into Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for alleged crimes against humanity, a judicial source said Wednesday, after world powers sparred at the United Nations over the embattled leader’s fate.

Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary inquiry on September 15 into alleged crimes committed by the Syrian government between 2011 and 2013, the source told AFP.

The French investigation is largely based on evidence from a former Syrian army photographer known by the code name “Caesar,” who defected and fled the country in 2013, bringing with him some 55,000 graphic photographs.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France had a “responsibility” to take action. “Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the assassins,” Fabius said in a statement sent to AFP.

While Assad is unlikely to ever take the stand in a French court, the inquiry could add to political pressure on the Syrian leader in the midst of a diplomatic row between the West and Russia and Iran over his fate.

The Syrian conflict has taken center stage at the UN General Assembly, where US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have clashed over how to bring an end to Syria’s civil war.

Syria’s four-year war has killed more than 240,000 people and Western diplomats have accused Damascus of killing more Syrians than IS by dropping barrel bombs – charges the government denies. The brutal conflict has also displaced millions of people, a key driver behind Europe’s refugee crisis.

The photographs that Caesar brought out of Syria entitled “Assad’s secret killings,” is being used by international bodies including the UN as part of an investigation into the regime’s role in “mass torture”. While the Syrian government has branded the report “political”.

The inquiry will be led by France’s war crimes body but Fabius also called on the UN and particularly its International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to press on with their investigations.